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THE TITANIC AND
DATA VISUALIZATION

A Normandy Middle School Education Portal

Purpose

A General Assembly individual project using data collected by the GA Data Science Immersive class.

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Objective

 My objectives were to ideate, research, analyze and find an interesting story from the given data. I was tasked to create three proto-personas, user cases and design a dashboard with drill down charts based on the data for one proto-persona.

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Approach 

My  approach was on data analysis, data visualization and creating a story based around history. I was inspired by love for early 20th century European culture and people. I have read many fiction and non-fiction books about the French resistance in Normandy and decided I would focus on the education of a Norman student. 

 

I chose this project in my portfolio because I am a mentor and believe we are all students in life constantly learning.  I am interested in technology in education. Education is the vehicle for humans to reach our potential and technology is an avenue. 

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Project duration

One week - April 17 - April 21, 2017
This project was in my 7th week of a 10 week UX class at General Assembly.

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My Team

Individual

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My Roles

Research, IA, Content, Data Analysis, Data Visualization, Usability

Francois - my chosen proto-persona

The Story: Adolescent French Girl in History Class

After analyzing the data and learned the second embarking port was in Cherbourg, Normandy, I chose to go in the direction of a French perspective.

 

My penchant for WWII history and the French occupation inspired me in this direction.

Insight

From my research, I created an online educational portal for a middle schooler from Normandy, France who was learning about the impact of the Titanic on her country and French people. Francoise wants to understand more about the impact of the Titanic wreck on French people.

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Educational dashboard

Middle school students portal

Format
A mock dashboard for a middle school education portal site. I chose a dashboard with little frills because 12 year old children need simplicity.

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Colors

I chose the colors on the map to be more dense by population of numbers embarking from each port. The red and green are tested for color-blindness accessibility.

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Boat infographic

Boat infographic was designed to be similar to a section of a ship for easy recognition and theme. The boat also is a match between the real world and system, one of Nielsen's heuristics.

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Embark port population density

Visual cues by heavier colors in the circle that had most passengers; influenced by Edward Tufte, Data Scientist and Data Visualization leader.

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Graphs from Titanic Data
From raw data to charts
Multiple charts were created from excel data with 24 categories of information for 890 passengers. My focus was on survival rates.

 

Culling of Data:

  1. The data culling went through multiple iterations.

  2. Passenger sorted by different embarking ports and I created worksheets for each port.

  3.  Passengers were classified by passenger class and survival rate.
     

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Visually comparing data
Titanic passengers compared to British passengers
From the data, I compared the survival rate of the passengers from Southampton, England to the rate of those embarking from Cherbourg, Normandy.

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Comparison and Why

  • Visualized an order of magnitude so that the students could simultaneously have a lesson in Math and History.

  • Chose black and red for clarity and simplicity.

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Retrospective
Data visualization is the presentation of data in a graphical format.
 
I enjoy researching and reading about data. This was the first time that I was required to analyze a spreadsheet, develop a user story, and create understandable and simple charts. The charts were created with pertinent information that the user would find valuable and useful. 
 
From this project, I learned the importance of a UX Designer in relaying statistics to a user. Data can be evaluated in multiple ways. Creating a clear and true story with simple and strong visuals can help the user understand the concepts and context.

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In hindsight and without time constraints, I would:

  1. Design additional charts and comparisons for all three ports;

  2. Build out the student dashboard with refined interactions;

  3. Use different colors than green and red because they are similar to those who are color blind, even though its an accessible pairing;

  4. Create an additional persona, the teacher, and use Service Design Thinking in regards to the digital and real world interactions between the teacher, student, and classroom environment.

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